Excalibur

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Excalibur Slot Review

For those who have taken up playing NetEnt games fairly recently, it must be hard to imagine a time when they weren’t industry leaders in graphics and animations. Well, it was a thing! In all seriousness, when you compare the Excalibur slot game to other slots of the period such as IGT’s Double Diamond Slot – it fares well enough. It might not be on a par with modern 3D slots but, even after all these years, it isn’t a terrible looking game. What ensures that it still has a small but loyal fan base though, isn’t the theme or visuals, it’s the game play.

Even in their early days, NetEnt were already developing a reputation for producing games that were packed with great game mechanics and return to player percentages that were ahead of the competition. The highlight of the Excalibur slot game is an incredible free spins bonus with re-triggers and a 3x multiplier. The game is based, as you might imagine from the name, on the Arthurian legend of the knights of the round table. Will you pull the sword from the stone on the Excalibur slot? Or, will you walk away empty handed? Read on for our full review.

Back in the day NetEnt favoured an adjustable pay-line structure for their games rather than the 243 ways to win which is popular now. Excalibur is just such a slot with up to twenty lines in play. With your lines selected use the coin value button to determine what each coin is worth and then use the bet level to multiply that up to your desired stake. You’ll find plenty of flexibility here with the minimum bet for all lines at 0.20 credits and a maximum stake of 80.00 credits. Given the medium variance and good payout percentages, it isn’t surprising that plenty of old school high rollers like this game.

Controls are a bit more basic than the modern NetEnt slots but, offer far more than most games of the time and more than some manufacturers provide even now. Take the auto-play option for instance. You can set this to a fixed number of spins, a fixed cash increase/decrease or even for it to run until the feature game kicks in. This level of control for player’s bankrolls is a warmly received feature of NetEnt slots. It’s worth noting that despite a solid control layout and the features mentioned above there is no bespoke mobile version of the game and it is much better played from a desktop PC.

Gameplay and Theme for the Excalibur Slot

Whilst Excalibur might not be the greatest visual feast ever offered by a slot game it still does a decent job of representing the theme. The reels are framed by an ornate gold surround and a medieval font with a few themed touches completes a basic but solid layout for the 5×3 reel grid. The characters are more developed and cover several aspects of the Arthurian legend with Arthur, the lady in the lake and Merlin all appearing. Even the royal playing card icons make sense in this setting displayed on heraldic shields. The music is pretty generic as are the ambient sound effects but you can mute one or both in the game controls.

Whilst the theme may be bland the gameplay certainly isn’t – starting with the wild action. Both the wilds are fixed and based on the sword in the stone story, they add strength to otherwise low wins in the base game thanks to a 3x and 4x multiplier respectively for the silver and gold swords. The game is certainly capable of big payouts thanks to high symbol values but, they are often elusive as it requires large 4 and 5 of a kind combinations to activate them. When it does hit though, you feel like the legend of the knights of the round table has chosen you as it’s spiritual successor and rewarded you with a king’s ransom in gold!

Excalibur Spins

The free spins feature game on the Excalibur slot is easily dismissed for a somewhat generic structure but, in our experience, this would be a mistake. There are 10,20 or 30 spins on offer and if you hit the max allowance the scatter win of 500x your line bet means you are already beginning the feature with more rewards than most bonus games grant by completion.

Both types of wild are available in the spins feature and re-triggers seem far more common than on the majority of NetEnt slots. 200-300x the stake is not uncommon here and that makes this one of the most valuable re-triggering free spins features on the slot market today if you get lucky. The downside is it can take quite a long time to trigger the feature game initially.

Summary

For players who are fans of big bonus games the Excalibur slot, despite its venerable history, really is still one of the best. You will find yourself playing chicken with your bankroll often though to get to the feature game as it frequently takes a lot of spins to trigger. Lacking a mobile version and with basic graphics, the Excalibur slot is never going to have the fan following of games like Dead or Alive. However, purely on the strength of the bonus it still deserves a place in the NetEnt range.